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Words of the year from around the world

Every weekday, PR Daily associate editor Alan Pearcy highlights the day’s most compelling stories and amusing marginalia on the Web in this, #TheDailySpin.

ME: What’s do you call those wagons in “Oregon Trail”—the ones with the covers?

ROOMMATE: A covered wagon.

Sadly, the above exchange did occur. Good thing I never shy away from admitting when I don’t know the answer to something—that’s what Google is for. Unfortunately, my roommate isn’t always around in times of mental lapse, and believe it or not, Google doesn’t know everything. The Swedish even have a new word for this phenomenon: ogooglebar. Mental_floss listed it as one of eight words of the year from other countries. Learn the other seven here.

Oxford University Press maintains the word of the year in the U.S. was “GIF,” an acronym meaning “graphics interchange format.” TimeOut recently caught up with School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) teachers and foremost “GIF scholars” Eric Fleischauer and Jason Lazarus to discuss the renaissance of the looping animations.

Equally as prevalent online, Internet memes have found their way into practically every nook and cranny of the Web, and now they’re even doing weddings. Check out what Mashable has deemed the best wedding RSVP cards ever.

Cards are also a huge hit for birthdays, so don’t forget to pick one up that you can send to Apple headquarters, where the company’s iPhone turned six years old this week. To mark the occasion, The Huffington Post lists six other inventions that the popular device is slowly killing.

I’m betting many PR and marketing professionals feel the on-set of a slow death when dealing with clients from hell. Rather than bottle up that rage, try Mark & Paddy’s approach. The Dublin creative agency turned its clients’ unnerving comments into a series of awesome posters that it sold to raise money for a children’s hospital.

Then again, maybe you’d rather be the client. Business Insider reports that former creative director Todd Waterbury at Wieden + Kennedy was recently named senior VP-creative for Target, an interesting move considering that W+K lost the retailer as a client a year ago.

The Girl Scouts are making a bold move of sorts. The Salt Lake City Tribune reports that the organization is unveiling newly designed boxes as its annual cookie season kickoffs.

Although those girls might be mere children, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from our kids. In honor of Universal Letter Writing Week, BuzzFeed offers 13 pieces of wisdom from kids’ letters.

Meanwhile, Red Robin learned good PR can cost as little as $11.50. That was the amount one of its managers deducted from the check of a pregnant diner and her family. The check included a note that read, “MOM 2 BEE GOOD LUC.” The bill went viral, as did positive publicity for the restaurant chain.

Is there something you think we should include in our next edition of #TheDailySpin? Tweet me @iquotesometimes with your suggestions. Thanks in advance.